Dear Friends, Sr. Maria stands at my office desk and points, suddenly, past my shoulder to the open window behind me. I turn to see two young deer peering in at us—less than a foot away from the screen, their dark eyes wide, ears tilting. A few minutes later, Warren Cooper, Campaign Coordinator of “Take...
Before I describe Thursday, Oct. 17 and Friday, Oct 18 of my pilgrimage in Rome with over 100 graduate and undergraduate students and thirty faculty and staff from fourteen US Catholic universities, I wish to express my gratitude to Maureen O’Connell, PhD, a former Cranaleith Board member and current member of the Mission and Governance...
Greetings again from Rome! Before I share with you what the CENTERS pilgrims did on Tuesday, Oct 15, and Wednesday, Oct 16, I wish to highlight a moment of encounter on Sunday that reminded me of where to keep my attention in the midst of the grandeur of Rome. The students, Becky McIntyre and I...
Ciao, amici! I am enjoying a pilgrimage to Rome, Italy, with over 100 students and thirty faculty and staff from fourteen US Catholic universities this week. The Catholic Church’s four-year Synod on Synodality — or more properly, on Communion, Mission and Participation – is in the midst of the Second General Assembly, building on what...
When Cranaleith first opened our doors as a spiritual center, we had experienced very little rainfall over the Spring and Summer. The pond was nearly dry. The vegetation around the pond was dying, and the surrounding trees were languishing. One of our first visiting groups were women from a Mercy ministry in North Philadelphia who...
“Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10. Dear Friends, At Cranaleith, the crickets chirp loudly in the meadow behind the historic house, in the space we are actively turning “wild,” crisscrossed by winding pathways Fred (core volunteer) has mown into the deep, tall grass. In 1897, Amos Dolbear found that the...
Dear Friends, Stepping out barefoot on the warm boards of our back deck, my younger daughter and I crane our necks to watch in amazement as hundreds of black birds, Common Grackles, fly through the trees in our woods, sliding between the branches, wings rustling, forming and reforming in synchronized groupings, swooping across the sky,...
Dear Friends, “Negative space” is a term used in art to describe the space surrounding a subject–that essential and important “empty” space surrounding the positive space in a composition.I am thinking about that concept while standing with Sr. Ellen Murray in the impossibly crowded, narrow hallway of Sr. Helen David Brancato’s art studio. Ellen and...
Dear Friends, Members of the staff have been watching closely the water of the pond, worrying about several ropey, green strands of algae.Because the waterfall has been temporarily blocked, the bright orange goldfish gather around the submerged bubblers, gills flashing as they gulp for oxygen. At our staff retreat, Sr. Maria begins by reminding us...
Dear Friends, Over the Memorial Day weekend, I trip on the broken sidewalk and fall, face-forward, on the concrete.I hear a woman in the distance gasp, “Are you alright?”.My husband kneels beside me in the street.I sit up dizzily and feel with my tongue the jagged edges of four, broken, front teeth.Bart and I had...
